Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for presenting a three-dimensional tomographic image.
Description of the Related Art
In the medical field, a doctor makes a diagnosis by using three-dimensional tomographic images (three-dimensional image data representing three-dimensional information inside an object) captured by a plurality of modalities or in a plurality of modes, three-dimensional tomographic images captured on different times, or three-dimensional tomographic images captured in different body postures. In order to use a plurality of types of three-dimensional tomographic images for a diagnosis, it is important to observe the same region of an object in the respective three-dimensional tomographic images. It is especially important to associate (identify) a region (a region of interest or a lesion area of interest) such as a lesion area of interest between images. While seeing the image of a lesion area of interest pointed out on one three-dimensional tomographic image, the doctor searches another three-dimensional tomographic image for a region (a corresponding region or a corresponding lesion area) corresponding to the lesion area by using, as clues, similarities in the shape of the lesion area, the appearance of a neighboring portion of the lesion area, and the like. Even in a field other than the medical field, in order to inspect the internal state of an object, three-dimensional tomographic images of the object are captured by a plurality of apparatuses, and another image is searched for a point of interest detected in one image.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-227215 discloses a technique of estimating a deformation between three-dimensional tomographic images captured in different body postures. According to this technique, identical slices of images having undergone deformation alignment are synchronously displayed and can be compared.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-133 discloses a technique of performing normalization processing of a breast region based on a papilla and displaying support information for search in a comparison region, in order to compare a region of interest between one image and the other image in captured left and right breast images.
However, the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-227215 still has a problem that it is difficult to accurately perform deformation alignment. Since slices do not always coincide with each other owing to an alignment error or the like, the comparison sometimes becomes difficult depending on the degree of error. The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-133 has a problem that auxiliary information in a three-dimensional space cannot be presented because the target image is a two-dimensional image.